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She married and settled down in Luray, raised three children who are now grown.
But seven years ago when divorce rocked her world, she went through what she describes as “a black night of the soul, those dregs of the dark night”
She retreated to Jewell Hollow, living in a small cabin and working as a hostess and waitress at Skyland Lodge, as she has done off and on for 20 years.
She struggled with depression and said, “I almost lost my life to those dregs and dark years (after the divorce).” But one day in winter near tlje end of three difficult years, she got lost, and found herself, she said.
Literally, she got lost along the Hazel River. “Dark was descending quickly and I iost the path, traveled here and there, and ended up in a part of the mountains where you could hear water running through the roots of big trees.”
She knew she would come out of the lost night either a madman or a poet, she said.
“A buck did a semi-circle around me snorting the whole time and then a long hoot of an owl caused me to lower my head to my knees for I did not want to become owl food to a huge owl that night.”
She asked, after she had walked to safety, “Did I return from my experience a madwoman or poet? Time will tell.” Now she can say, “I am so much more than I would have been without that dark night.”
She has found for herself “a fiery animation” and she fives for the joys of every day and feels sad for those who wait and forego pleasure for the joys of heaven. She said she had found “salvation through nature on a divine level.”
She has had several names, a married one and a single one and one she gave herself. But she has through it all kept the one that really matters: Joy.
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